When Your Mind's Made Up

Lately, I have been making choices in my personal life that I am well aware some people have found ... let's say questionable, because it's preferable to "batshit crazy."

(But let's also acknowledge that I'm aware that there are people who think I'm batshit crazy.)

There was a time -- even fairly recently -- when this would have bothered me immensely.

It doesn't anymore, though.

At some point within the last year it finally dawned on me that this? This life? This is what I get. So I can either do the things I really want to OR I can not do them. It's up to me. The ramifications of those choices are also up to me.

I mean, duh.

And also?

REALLY? She asked, rubbing her hands together in glee. Oh honey, there are going to be some CHANGES around here.

It's sort of like this: I was talking with a friend of mine and he said, "You know what? Who cares if no one gets it as long as it makes sense to you."

It used to be really important to me that I not make mistakes. When someone (ahem) told me that blogging was stupid? I stopped blogging because I didn't want to be the weird girl with the blog. When someone (ahem AHEM) told me that I wasn't a very good singer, I stopped singing in public. Not because I didn't love doing those things, but because I wasn't certain enough of myself to have the courage to keep doing them if I was going to be heckled for them. I couldn't hear anything over the negative messaging, and those negative messages told me not to do, not to try, not to be.

Here's what I've come to realize, though: listening to negativity? Doesn't make it go away. It's going to be there whether you are the weird girl who writes or the weird girl who simply wants to write but doesn't dare because someone might think it's stupid. It's better to put yourself out there and be stupid than to wish and not know.

It's better still to put yourself out there, risk being stupid, and not give a good goddamn.

It took me a while -- obviously, I'm 37 and I'm just figuring it out -- to realize that the voice I most need to listen to is MINE. And that while I value input, and can continue to ask for it, I need to make sure that I'm doing what makes me happy.

Just me.

Making up my own mind.

It's about time, don't you think?